7 year review of my SMG (from clunk to no clunk)

[992gnt]

Hehe. That is normal sound as you bleed, the only way to see if there are any air in the system is by opening the reservoir. I want to say that the "air noise" you are referring to sounds like a whistle and its fluid moving through the lines. If you had air in the system you will hear more of a grinding noise.

There is nothing wrong with bleeding the system and having the cap off the reservoir.

Hope this helps!

Ah, great! Thanks for the diagnosis!

[Irhase46m3]

Each time it says it's bleeding the system, at the end of the cycle it sounds like air escaping. I've never looked in the reservoir to see if there is air escaping. I've also never tried to locate the source of the noise.

Hehe. That is normal sound as you bleed, the only way to see if there are any air in the system is by opening the reservoir. I want to say that the "air noise" you are referring to sounds like a whistle and its fluid moving through the lines. If you had air in the system you will hear more of a grinding noise.

There is nothing wrong with bleeding the system and having the cap off the reservoir.

Hope this helps!

[992gnt]

During what part of the bleed/adaptation process does the squeak occur? Are you think that the squeak sound is caused by air? Or do you actually see bubbles escaping in the reservoir?

Each time it says it's bleeding the system, at the end of the cycle it sounds like air escaping. I've never looked in the reservoir to see if there is air escaping. I've also never tried to locate the source of the noise.

[Irhase46m3]

Thanks. I bled it as part of the INPA routine, trying to resolve another SMG fault. The pump all related hardware is in the stock location, but it always squeaks at me when it's bleeding.

During what part of the bleed/adaptation process does the squeak occur? Are you think that the squeak sound is caused by air? Or do you actually see bubbles escaping in the reservoir?

[992gnt]

This is great info, thank you for sharing. My SMG doesn't have any symptoms or issues of concern at this point and I've only done the 40mph + Neutral + press both paddles for 8-10secs. Is there any risk of running thru the bleeding procedure and reset of adaptations on an SMG system that seems to be running normal? If any of the procedures fail can you end up with a non-functioning SMG?

This is what happened to me, I ran full adaptations with no real symptoms to correct, the routine failed, and I got the cog of death. A used GPS sensor followed by a new GPS sensor and multiple times on the lift removing everything under the car, I finally got the adaptations to complete successfully.

If it's your daily, I wouldn't recommend running adaptations unless you have some time and money to throw at it just in case.

[992gnt]

No air should be coming out of the system. If you have a pump relocation kit then it takes some time to fully bleed the system, i must have had to bleed 24 to 30 times. Its also important that if you are using a vertical pump bracket (as opposed to the horizontal oem position) you will need to bleed the unit in horizontal position to get all the air out before resting it on vertical position with its bracket (hopefully im making sense here) - I have a complete pump relocation kit from burkhart engineering and i came across this issue with their vertical bracket. I wish they would have pointed in their wikipedia as it would have saved me some time.

If you still have air or dont see the bubbles being less frequent, you might have a leak elsewhere in the system or perhaps a bad o-ring/gasket. This all depends on what was done to the system that caused you to bleed it.

hope this info helps!

Thanks. I bled it as part of the INPA routine, trying to resolve another SMG fault. The pump all related hardware is in the stock location, but it always squeaks at me when it's bleeding.

[Irhase46m3]

This is great info, thank you for sharing. My SMG doesn't have any symptoms or issues of concern at this point and I've only done the 40mph + Neutral + press both paddles for 8-10secs. Is there any risk of running thru the bleeding procedure and reset of adaptations on an SMG system that seems to be running normal? If any of the procedures fail can you end up with a non-functioning SMG?

The reset you are doing is the driver adaptation reset which is when its trying to learn your driving characteristics, which helps slightly and from experience (related to clunks) if there is an issue with the system, the clunks return and its not as smooth.

I've gone through 3 clutches (a recall from ECSTuning) through my 7 year ownership, in learning this system and the mechanics of it, i do all the work myself, you can reset the system as much as you want without causing any issues, the only concern is the clutch curve adaptation which essentially tells the system its a new clutch and it will try to learn it. This will produce a tad bit of a harsher shift as its breaking in the curve.

Its also important to note that within ISTA/D you have access to reset the clutch curve via the SMG module under vehicle tests, when doing this in INPA following the bleeding process (only gives you 3 options followed by F8 to run them) on the third option "full adaptation" it will reset the clutch curve.

In the event that something fails due to adaptation/bleed it will trigger the COG light to be turned on, if you cant complete the whole bleed of the actuator or the clutch cylinder and/or adaptation then there is obviously something wrong with the system that needs attention. At this point you would only be prolonging the inevitable, all systems fail its just a matter of when and do preventive maintenance.

Hope this helps

[maw1124]

Great writeup. Thanks. My takeaways are (1) bleeding these systems is difficult and time consuming (check)... I have to think that works better with fresh fluid than sludge (check); (2) chassis rubber needs to be taken care of (check)... sure it’s expensive but no free lunches (or course); and (3) a proper functioning engine and sensors helps (check). The first 2 I’ve taken care of... the 3rd makes too much sense and will have my attention going forward. I’m also paying increased attention to sensors on other cars of this era, so I appreciate its application here.

Cheers,

maw

[HitmanM3]

This is great info, thank you for sharing. My SMG doesn't have any symptoms or issues of concern at this point and I've only done the 40mph + Neutral + press both paddles for 8-10secs. Is there any risk of running thru the bleeding procedure and reset of adaptations on an SMG system that seems to be running normal? If any of the procedures fail can you end up with a non-functioning SMG?

[Distinct]

No air should be coming out of the system. If you have a pump relocation kit then it takes some time to fully bleed the system, i must have had to bleed 24 to 30 times. Its also important that if you are using a vertical pump bracket (as opposed to the horizontal oem position) you will need to bleed the unit in horizontal position to get all the air out before resting it on vertical position with its bracket (hopefully im making sense here) - I have a complete pump relocation kit from burkhart engineering and i came across this issue with their vertical bracket. I wish they would have pointed in their wikipedia as it would have saved me some time.!

This drove my performance shop crazy having to bleed it so many times and then also discovering that it had to be horizontal in the original configuration.

[Irhase46m3]

I have a question, when bleeding in INPA, should it ever stop purging air? I've bled mine probably a dozen times in the last 6 months, and it always lets off a squeak of air at the end of a cycle. I'm just curious what is "normal" behavior.

No air should be coming out of the system. If you have a pump relocation kit then it takes some time to fully bleed the system, i must have had to bleed 24 to 30 times. Its also important that if you are using a vertical pump bracket (as opposed to the horizontal oem position) you will need to bleed the unit in horizontal position to get all the air out before resting it on vertical position with its bracket (hopefully im making sense here) - I have a complete pump relocation kit from burkhart engineering and i came across this issue with their vertical bracket. I wish they would have pointed in their wikipedia as it would have saved me some time.

If you still have air or dont see the bubbles being less frequent, you might have a leak elsewhere in the system or perhaps a bad o-ring/gasket. This all depends on what was done to the system that caused you to bleed it.

hope this info helps!

[Andy2424]

I liked DIS a lot more for adapting the smg than INPA. It's a lot more complicated to set up on a laptop though.

Unfortunately I can't manage it either :-(. It is twice as difficult for me, since everything is described in English. My English is very bad ...

[Andy2424]

It is very easy.

Find the Inpa.ini and replace the GERMAN in ENGLISH

[eacmen]

Anyone know how to get INPA to display English instead of german?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mspir3d]

I liked DIS a lot more for adapting the smg than INPA. It's a lot more complicated to set up on a laptop though.